Chapter 32: It never rains...

The other good news was that – according to the paper – five more couples had died since I'd left for Indiana, bringing the total to sixteen – people, not couples. Both April, and little Carrie Ann, were starting the new year off by getting to know their new families. Of course they both actually knew the families, but ... well, you know what I mean. I'd been making it a point to stay away from the paper since this all started, but being away for two weeks made me feel like I needed to catch up. I could have – probably should have – just asked Jamie, but for some reason it didn't occur to me.

"Damn, sis." I wasn't angry, just surprised at the timing. "A little heavy handed, don't you think? Especially around Christmas."

"No, not really," she answered. "In fact, it seemed perfect to me; the holidays have the highest accident and suicide rates of the year. Or did you miss that part?"

"Suicide?" I asked. "Oh man, did you ask Allison about that first? That's really going to be hard on the girls."

"It was the best Christmas gift I could think of for those particular girls. You know it would have been easier if you'd just asked me where we stood. And before you ask, we're at that point; you need to get serious about whatever you plan to do to help these girls transition, and we need to stop fooling around and nail Hightower. If you read the rest of those articles, you'll see that a lot of people are talking about the connection all these people have. We need to finish this before someone like Spencer gets involved in an official capacity. Even though there is nothing to point at these being anything but accidents – suicide in the one case – she knows too much about Bastion to not suspect that there may be more to it. Not to mention that she knows you've been investigating him at the direction of someone that both she, and higher powers, suspect to be the leader of a closet group that wouldn't hesitate to take these kinds of steps to reach their goal. The one rule in that world is that you don't attract attention, and this is starting to do exactly that, so if a government agency – like the FBI – gets involved, they're going to bring their A-game, because they need to show that the government does not condone this type of activity. And if they in fact were to find someone hiding under the coat-tails of someone in Washington, they would make damn sure that it doesn't end up all over the front page somewhere. And anyone they did catch wouldn't be bound over for trial where he has the constitution guaranteeing his right to free speech. I don't think we want to put Nicki in a position like that."

"But there is nobody hiding under a desk in Washington. There's not even a desk in Washington to hide under."

"Jimmy, don't be dense. I know there is no desk in Washington, but we've done everything we could to make them think that there is. I will bet you anything that Atkins is even now going through every scrap of print regarding anyone and everyone that has died here in the past year, to see if anyone else was connected to Bastion's church. Right now she's not looking for anyone; she's just making sure of her facts and that nothing that they have found even hints of foul play. But I'm also willing to bet that whoever she answers to has already asked her if she had anything to do with any of this. We all know she hasn't, but the very fact that they would ask is going to worry her. We need to end this, decisively; wrap it up in one nice neat bundle with no loose ends that point to anyone else being involved. And we need to do it before it attracts any more attention. I don't like Atkins any better than you do. The fact that she was willing to sacrifice Phoebe makes her just a little too practical for me, but that is what anyone at her level is going to be: practical. We've talked about it before; they have two priorities: number two is 'get the job done'; number one is don't get caught. It's all or nothing for someone like her; if she gets caught, she dies. I'll bet you anything that her newest assignment is to very quietly and carefully start checking under desks in Washington to make sure that if this does blow up, they can contain it. Jimmy, we're out of time; we've circled the wagons as best we could to protect the innocents that we can. Now it's time to take the fight to Bastion."

"I guess vacation is officially over then. I'll talk to Allison tonight. We're going to need to decide what to do about the girls first. We need something in place to help them through all this and keep them from talking about it – before school starts back up and all their friends start asking questions about what happened. I should have done this before we left."

"That would only have been possible if you'd known what was going to happen."

"I know," I said. "I pussied out on this whole thing, and now it's put us on the spot."

"Jimmy, don't go there; it's a waste of time and energy. For starters, you didn't pussy out; you made the big decision; that was your job. Second, you had other things to do, like being somewhere else and looking busy while everything was happening. Not to mention coming up with a way to deal with the fallout, which we've barely managed to do as it is. Yes, it would have been better if something had been in place in the girls sooner, but we didn't know that; and even if we had, we didn't have anything ready. The question now is can Christine keep up?"

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Jimmy? Haven't you been listening? We need to move. That means we need you and Christine to get busy, really busy, and start knocking out little proto-patterns so we have enough to go around. Considering how many we need we're talking about a lot of sex, either that, or..."

"Or what?" I asked.

No response.

"Jamie?"

"Nothing," she said.

"Noooo you don't," I said, actually shaking my head. I laid back on the couch, crossed over and said, "Come on, get your cute ass out here; you made me promise not to walk away from you, and this is part of the deal. Now get out here and talk to me!"

"Promise you're not going to be mad at me?"

"Was that a question?"

"No," she said. "It was a condition."

"Jamie, that's not fair; I can't promise that without knowing what you're talking about, and..."

She cut me off with one word, "Dandelion," and then she was gone.

"Shit!" I swore.

What the hell could she be so worried about that she would run away like that? And what did she mean by... ? I checked the time and swore again; everyone was in school. Damn it, there's a reason I'm not the brains of this outfit, and now she wanted me figure this out on my own, and ... Holy Shit! She couldn't be serious.

"Jamie, I'm not mad, but you can't be serious!"

She came back and stepped out so we could talk.

"Where were you?" I asked.

"You don't know?"

"I didn't look!"

"Oh ... I was with Amber," she said. "You're really not mad? I didn't mean it, really; it just sort of popped into my head when I was talking about needing a bunch of balls all at once. Suddenly I had this image of a dandelion exploding when you kicked it, or a really strong breeze blew through. Jimmy, I swear I..."

I held up my hand. "It's okay; I understand. Jamie, there's nothing wrong with thinking of that. It's not like you're talking about springing it on her unprepared and out of the blue. You had an idea, that's all, and I'm not going to be mad at you about something like that. Now if you tried to act on it without telling anyone, your ass would be toast, but don't ever be afraid to speak up about an idea. I think – given what we're already involved in – that we should be past that. We both knew what the solution to this mess was going to involve long before you brought it up. The longer you waited, the longer it would have taken for me to come around. If you'd brought it up sooner, we could probably be finished by now. Instead, you waited for me to get there on my own, and that took a lot longer than if you had just confronted me with it. I still would have waited, but I would have been thinking about it more and realized the truth a lot sooner. Kind of like Allison's suggestion of using a ball on Samantha to see if we could protect her: It had to be done, but I had to be sure there was no other way to do it. Now, do you think this would actually work?"

"Well," she said, rolling her eyes and trying to look open minded instead of anxious. "I'd be willing to try it if she would."

Now it was my turn to roll my eyes. "Oh yeah, right, way to take one for the team there, sis. No, seriously, do you think it could work?"

"You mean you'd really be willing to ... you know?"

"I don't know," I answered honestly. "If there is another way, probably not, because I don't know if any of us would be in any condition to do anything with them if you're right and she ... blew up at the end. But also, there would be the issue of when; Christine has school five days a week, so we'd have to wait until Friday night – assuming they don't want her for another night flight – and then she'd need the whole weekend to recover. As fun as all that sounds, I think we can probably get what we need by the weekend without putting ourselves through all that. We've gotten doubles before, I'm sure we could ... Hmm, there's a thought. I wonder if it would work if you went with Lizzy or Allison?"

"Seriously?" She asked. She seemed to be thinking about it for a few seconds, and then she shook her head. "No, if Allison's energy theory holds, then it's more likely I'd be holding on to the energy rather than releasing it to work on Christine. And even if it did, I don't know what it would take out of me. Being with one of them would help because I'd still get fed from you at the same time, but I don't know if what I get through them would be enough to compensate for what I'd be using on her. You know what I mean?"

"Yeah," I said, nodding my understanding. "You're probably right. I think I only brought it up because I felt guilty that we're the ones having all the fun. I wonder if any of them contain enough energy to do the job?"

"I don't think there's any way to know without actually trying it," she said. "Have you noticed that we all seem to be going along with Allison's theory?"

"Yes, I have, but so far she seems to be right on with everything she's come up with. Besides, she talked to Brandiy about it, and apparently Brandiy didn't see anything wrong with her theory."

"That's true," Jamie said, "but not saying she's wrong isn't saying she's right, either. It could be that she just wants to let Allison pursue it on her own and draw her own conclusions."

"True," I said. "Okay, so the game plan for the week is sex?"

"Works for me!" She said with a smile. "Fortunately, it works for her too. Then as quickly as possible, we get the girls patterned and protected as best we can. You know, we really should be doing the adults, too, just as an added level of insurance. Make sure no one ever changes their mind, has a revelation, or wants to clear their conscience on their deathbed at everyone else's expense."

"Slut!" I accused.

"No, I'm serious. I don't mean like by the weekend, but we need to keep it on the list for what to do with our leftovers. Wish we'd thought of it sooner instead of just throwing all those extra ones away like we did."

"Hindsight," I said, and then checked the time. "Come on; let's go pull Rivers' chain with an update."

"Sweet! Any chance to fuck with that asshole is fine by me," she said, then snapped her fingers and added, "Ooh!"

"What?" I asked.

"You were wondering if any of the other girls could get Christine to pop a seed? I don't think so, or it probably would have happened the other night when she and Allison made friends."

"How do we know it didn't?" I asked. "The only one who can see those things is Lizzy and she was with me."

"Oh yeah," she said, "forgot about that." She was thoughtful for a moment. "I don't think it will work with one of the others. If it were going to, the most likely candidate would be Lizzy, and if it had happened the night Christine took the plunge with her, she would have said something. I'm not completely ruling it out, but I'm thinking no."

"Oh darn," I laughed. "Looks like we'll just have to do it ourselves."

"Tragic," she agreed, "but either way, we need to get on it, we're out of time."

Not only did Rivers have the court order granting me access to any and all information Child Services in Vegas had on Phoebe, but he even apologized for the delay. The look on his face when I told him I had managed to secure an order in her home state by myself, and had already reviewed her file there, was priceless.

There really hadn't been much to see in the file; Phoebe hadn't been in the system long enough to really have much of a past. However, after I explained the nature of my concern for Phoebe, including the suspicion that someone may have kidnapped her for unknown reasons, the judge was more than willing to co-operate – so generous that I had court-ordered access to anything that had to do with her or her parents, including school records. The first thing I discovered was that in her absence, her parents estate had cleared probate and was just waiting for someone to decide what to do with her property. Since her parents had died without a will, everything went to her. An attempt had been made to contact her Uncle as her listed guardian, but they quickly discovered that the phone was disconnected. I was surprised to learn that the house was paid for, having been inherited from her paternal grandparents. There was a petition before the court asking for permission to sell the property. Not surprisingly, there were several buyers lined up to bid on it – for considerably less than it was worth, of course. This was nothing new, and it didn't take much to get the judge to deny the motion and place the property with a reputable rental agency for a year, to give us time to find her. One of the court clerks would act as conservator over the financial aspects until a decision could be made.

Of course, I didn't tell Rivers about any of that.

"I didn't find anything to suggest why someone may have wanted to kidnap her, though," I said. "Her parents were already dead, and I don't see how anybody besides the Aunt and Uncle would even know about the estate. Obviously I didn't know them, but do you think they would have wanted to move there?"

"They were quite happy here, Mr. Malcolm. The lifestyle appealed to them."

"Yeah, I'll bet!" Jamie chimed in.

"I can understand that," I said honestly. "There is a certain odd charm to the town – if you don't mind the tourists, that is. And once you learn your way around, there seem to be many hidden rewards – as long as you stay away from the strip."

"Yes there are," Rivers said, eyeing me oddly.

"Oh, that's disgusting!" Jamie said. "The bastard is actually daydreaming about recruiting us. Mr. Ed's been naughty."

"How so?" I asked.

"He's been poking around, checking up on us; they like your bank account. You're going to need to watch yourself; when I say recruit, I mean the way they did Stephen."

"Yeah, I figured that was what you meant."

"So what is your next step?" Rivers was asking.

"Kick your boss's ass and send you all to hell where you belong," Jamie quipped.

"Well, now that I have the court order, I want to see what Child Services has to offer," I said. "Will this allow me access to all the material the police have gathered regarding the investigation as well?"

"I can't guarantee anything; it just depends on how cooperative the police want to be, but since your investigation could also lead them to whoever killed their officers, I would think they should be forthcoming with whatever information they had."

Now that was an interesting statement!

"Oooooh," Jamie sort of cooed. "They've figured out that 'Jimmy' killed Andrews and Charles, and is probably the one hiding Phoebe."

"What do you mean 'killed their officers'?" I asked. "I thought that they had ruled it a murder-suicide?"

"That is the theory," Rivers said, "but we have our doubts. They still don't know what killed Carl, nor do they have any kind of reasonable motive for him to kill his partner."

"Carl? You mean Andrews? You knew him?" This was getting more interesting by the second.

"I knew them both," Rivers admitted. His voice held a trace of anger, and I wasn't sure if it was because the men were dead or because he had given away information he hadn't intended to. "Both officers were members of the church."

I tried for a dramatic pause as I stared at him.

"Mr. Rivers... ," I began, setting my fork down.

Without taking my eyes off of his, I leaned slightly forward, placing my elbows on either side of my plate and steepling my fingers just below chin level, and let my voice slip to something a little less friendly and conversational.

" ... I'm starting to get the idea that there is more going on here than you've told me. What is it exactly I'm doing here: Finding a missing girl, or investigating the death of those two officers?"

He pulled back like I'd slapped him.

"What? Finding ... No! Your job is to find the girl, of course." He shook his head as he was speaking. "Her safety is our primary concern. If in the course of your investigation you should find information that can shed some light on Nick and Carl's deaths, then we would be grateful, but they are in God's hands now, and we can do nothing for them except perhaps provide a better sense of closure for their families. The girl, however, is still missing, and in who knows what kind of earthly danger, and we would like her back."

Ed was really off his game today; this had possibilities.

"But you don't buy the murder-suicide?" I pressed. "You think someone murdered those two officers? Why, because they were looking for Phoebe? All the evidence points to..."

"That's the whole point!" Rivers said hotly. "There is no evidence! It was too perfect, and there was no reason, or justification, for Carl to do it."

Wow, this was really personal to him!

"So let me get this strait," I said. "You think someone – or more likely some group – kidnapped a young orphan; murdered the family that had taken her in; and then murdered the two cops who were looking for her in such a way as to make it look like one of them did it. And now you want me to find them? You expect me, by myself, to track down and confront someone that could do all that and get away with it? Rivers, are you out of your fucking mind?"

"What? No! No, we don't expect ... Christ, look, all we want is for you to find the girl. We didn't hire you to play Rambo; we just want you to find her. The authorities can take it from there."

"The authorities don't seem to give a shit."

"That's certainly true," he said, "but doesn't that seem odd to you as well?"

Curiouser and curiouser.

"So ... what... ? You think someone is covering this all up and told the cops to drop it? This is conspiracy theory stuff, Ed. You think the government is behind it? I don't see anyone else having enough clout to kill two cops and then tell the rest to drop it and walk away. This is nuts."

He took a deep breath and tried to regroup. "Look, I'm sorry. I've obviously let my personal feelings get in the way here. Much of what you are saying has occurred to me, and I agree that it's ludicrous to believe that it's all even possible. I've let my imagination run away with me when I never intended to bring any of this up. Here is your authorization from the court; just do what you can, okay?"

With that he got up and left.

"Nice job bro," Jamie said, her voice ringing with pride. "You really shook him up."

"Thanks. I was tempted to just get up and walk away there for a minute."

"I could tell," she said. "Oh, Hightower would have his balls if he screwed this up!"

"Big time," I said, "but they still might have tried to hire someone else, and we don't want that. Let's go talk to Christine."

As usual, our timing was perfect: Spencer called on the way back from the restaurant and asked me to meet her in the park for an ice cream. The first thing she did – besides making me buy, again – was to hand me back the playing card.

"They're her prints," she said.

"Damn," I said, sticking the little baggie in my pocket. "I knew they would be, but I still don't know what to do about the rest of this. What about the guy in the paper?"

"What do you know about him?" She asked.

"I was on vacation," I said, "so I haven't looked into him personally, but according the information she sent along with the paper, he was the leader of really nasty drug cartel that was moving into one of the port cities."